MAYOR WU DEFENDS LIST
Mayor Michelle Wu said she was not seeking to intimidate the people included on the list of critics she provided to the Boston Police Department.
Rather, the list was made after “threats” and “explicit violence” committed by the included critics reached a tipping point at last year’s Dorchester Day Parade, and the city was forced to implement an entirely new safety plan for future public events, Wu told reporters yesterday.
“This is really a matter of safety and having to protect the city workers who unfortunately like my family for over a year have been subject to situations that have crossed the line,” Wu said at an unrelated City Hall event.
Wu dismissed the notions that her list was similar to the so-called enemies lists compiled by former President Richard Nixon with a laugh, stating, “I certainly wasn’t around then and have no sense that there’s any relevancy.”
“The people who were on this list, that was in preparation for safety — safety prep for a parade,” Wu said. “The reality is we have a public safety plan for nearly all of our public events now because it’s necessary, and we’re in close coordination with Boston Police.”
The list, first reported by the Herald in a story that has since gone viral, included Wu’s most vocal critics, such as City Council candidate Catherine Vitale, several anti-vaccine activists who have been protesting outside Wu’s house, and North End restaurant owners who opposed the mayor’s restrictions on outdoor dining.
It was sent in an email from Wu’s former director of constituent services Dave Vittorini to Boston Police Capt. Robert Ciccolo. The correspondence simply included the names of 15 people, including Vitale, Shana Cottone, “Mendoza Brothers from the North End,” and “a woman with the last name of Thuy who was arrested before.”
Wu said Tuesday that she and her family were harassed by these people for more than a year, at local events, at her home, and while she was walking her kids to school.
Further, the group committed violence against police officers on Wu’s personal security detail, and “in more recent days, even more explicit violence,” according to the mayor.
The tipping point, however, she said, was at last June’s Dorchester Day Parade,
when for “90 minutes and several miles, some people were harassing my kids and me and our city, the team and other folks in very close quarters, even as they were originally asked to leave the parade route.”
In preparation for a Bunker Hill Day parade that was held later that month, a police captain had requested a list of the names of individuals who had been “involved in public disruption and harassment of the mayor at the Dorchester Day Parade and outside her house,” according to a prior statement from a Wu spokesperson.
Wu declined to say what the police did with the list.